Typo -- A wish?

In my post on the Mason Ohio police killing, I mistakenly typed the officers as kicking with their "books" -- instead of boots. What kind of world would it be if police carried books? They could still be used as weapons, I suppose.

Police Kill Mentally Ill Man

Two police in Mason, Ohio used repeated Taser prods and kicking with their books to kill a mentally ill man. I wrote to the mayor and chief of police. No doubt you and the “damage control” specialists are labeling it an “incident.” However, the clear evidence makes it self-evident that Officers Daniel Fry and Sean McCormick tortured and murdered Doug Boucher, an unarmed man, mentally ill. The number of Taser strikes, his bloody face, the forensic evidence of being kicked with boots – it’s beyond imagining what the last interval of this man’s life must have been like. How pitiful, how shameful, how horrifying that when they roughly grabbed his arms to handcuff him they realized he was dead. The American public now knows it is routine for police officers who wrongfully assault and/or murder a person to claim that the person was threatening them. There’s even a word for it when used in court: “testa-lying.” Among those in a well-trained police force no officer would ever have to resort to this shameful strategy. It goes without saying that the police officers in Mason need to have training to help them handle situations such as this without torturing or killing a person. The officers involved need to be relieved of duty. They also need therapy to deal with impulse control and anger. From their actions, it is logical to suspect that they are the ones with mental problems, much more dangerous to society than Doug Boucher who, though “mentally ill,” has no record of harming another human being. The police in Mason, ironically serving “Ohio’s largest playground,” must urgently reassess the purpose of what it means to protect and serve. It is essential for everyone that those words reflect reality, not just continue as meaningless phrases for self-praising speeches. We can have peace without employing police to act as bullies who use out of control force. Any society is judged by its treatment of the most helpless and the most innocent.

Boulder City Manager Steps Up re Elk killing

Following is the unusual letter I received from the Boulder Colorado city manager, followed by my response to her. "I share your concern about the number of incidents in our police department over the past year. We have had four employees make very poor decisions. Those four employees represent about 1.4 percent of the police department. "The city has taken each violation very seriously. Boulder’s internal affairs officers investigated the situations from a policy and discipline perspective, and external agencies investigated when appropriate (such as DUI, weapons sales, and the Mapleton elk). The Boulder Police Department cooperated fully with these external investigations and also took additional actions when department policies and officer codes of conduct were violated. "While Boulder works very hard to maintain a model police department, no organization is perfect. The issue, however, is not whether an organization has occasional problems; it is how the organization responds and deals with each situation. The Boulder Police Department has a long record of being responsive to allegations of misconduct and in dealing with them appropriately. . . . "In reference to the elk that was killed in the Mapleton Hill neighborhood on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013, we are taking the situation very seriously. There are two separate investigations underway to determine the facts and details of this incident – an internal investigation by Police Department’s Professional Standards Unit (internal affairs) and a criminal investigation by Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife (CDPW). "Officers Sam Carter and Brent Curnow, the officers involved in the elk shooting, have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigations. "The CDPW’s investigation will focus on whether a crime was committed by the officers. The Boulder Police Department is cooperating fully with wildlife officials and cannot comment on the agency’s investigation. Questions should be directed to CDPW.. . . We will be awaiting the outcome of the criminal investigation before reaching any conclusions. This could take several weeks to complete. "I appreciate your concern about the police department and can assure you that the situation is being thoroughly investigated; the city will respond appropriately." Very truly, Jane S. Brautigam City Manager -0- Dear Jane S. Brautigam – Thank you for responding to my concerns about the elk killing. I am impressed with what you write and your general approach. Sometimes I and other animal activists are regarded with dismissal or disdain. It was inspiriting to be connected with your ideas. As you know the matter about how we treat animals has far more dimensions than we knew before. As I said, it’s not just that we should treat animals differently than we did in the past; it is that a new approach and new insights are tied into the visionary thinking that will bring us – we dearly hope – to a new evolutionary point in regard to the web of life. To a point wherein we don’t just deny or feel anxiety about the ruinous damage to the planet but where we turn in the direction of guardianship. More and more we see that a hope for life lies in new visions about life. Though I’m not religious in the traditional sense, I recently found that, far back in the writing of Revelations it was said: “Hurt not the trees nor the waters...” Probably the officers who thought it was routine or okay to kill the elk need to see a broader perspective. How to bring that about will be a daunting challenge. I extend my respect and kindest wishes. Thank you again – China Altman

"Manly" Policeman kills pet elk

A police officer in Boulder Colorado killed a big tame elk which had become a fixture in a neighborhood where the people fed it and treated it like a mascot. The officer posted photos of himself as a hero. There is an internet petition protesting what he did. I wrote: Policeman Sam Carter - Feels good to kill a tame elk who just walks up to you? Who are you? What will you do next -- go into people's yards and kill their dogs and cats? Many of your fellow human beings have become aware of the web of life WITHIN which we live. We are not ABOVE it and our survival on the planet depends on our becoming guardians of this web. It includes every living thing, large and small. The reflex of killing as a first response to seeing a so-called "wild" animal affects all of us and damages all of us. It is out dated. It is not "manly" as you no doubt think it is. Killing that elk was no different than killing a person's pet. Do you plan to go to the zoo and shoot the animals in the cages? Is this really the example you want to hold up to children? Far from making you a "manly" example, what you did identifies you in another way and not favorably. Please re-think your approach to animals, to living beings, and your impulse to kill without thinking. Whenever you kill a being that is loved you are killing part of the souls of everyone who regarded that being with love. The more you encourage the knee jerk killer in yourself, the more you set yourself onto a path into the past, into a darkness that you may not see, a darkness that will affect every day of your life.

Nevada Governor Backs Selling Wild Horses for Food

I wrote to Governor Sandoval who backs the brutal roundups of wild horses, including foals, to sell to slaughter houses: All over the world American consultants are working to persuade local peoples not to kill the wildlife. Practical reasons: Wildlife is an essential part of the tourist and travel industry. Wildlife is part of what makes any given area unique. Other reasons: Wildlife are part of the web of life. Only recently we humans realized we were WITHIN and not above the web of life. We are not its rulers. We trample in it at our peril. What does it matter if we round up wild horses and sell them to eat? Our routine of killing to resolve wildlife "issues" belongs to the past. Certainly we can honor the past of the Wild West. That doesn’t mean we keep on as if we lived in the past, as if we were still those people who wiped out the herds of bison. They also thought it didn’t matter. Those who would like the earth to continue for our children and our descendants are thinking now about how we can transform our thinking and our approaches. We now see that we can harm the web of life. Harm can be caused that we can’t fix, no matter how hard we try. We are just beginning to learn about the web of life in ways we never knew before. Maybe you’ll say we can’t tell, right now, what we need to do in order to be guardians and caretakers of the earth for the future. Maybe not, but we can try to learn every day. We can re-examine the old ideas instead of blindly following them. And right now, we can stop holding up to our children examples like killing wild horses. Right now we can do that for our souls. And for the soul of the world. Thank you for reading this.

Obama, all politicians have prairie-sized holes in their world views

The oil companies fight like ravening ogres for every inch of the earth they can destroy for oil. The government kowtows to ranchers who want to kill wolves, coyotes and other life on adjacent lands to their lands, which now exist as despot-ruled nations within our larger nation. "Environmentalists" and others who see the need for different goals, for a different world -- they are voices in the wilderness. In fact there is a new kind of wilderness made up of massed and growing intertwined channellings of moneys and other resources for the rich and powerful and decreasing life -- indeed decreasing chance for survival -- of those who do not belong to the rarefied and degraded world of the new emperors. Today another appeal to "personalize" the Arctic drilling protest letters to the president. I wrote the following precede. "An enormous empty space in the president's world view has to do with his lack of consciousness about the web of life and the necessity of guardianship rather than destruction of the earth, with all its participants, including those humans ignorantly label as "other ... wild ... unnecessary ... disposable ... inconvenient" and so on. When we were younger in evolution one of our primary goals was killing for protection and for food. THINGS HAVE CHANGED. The human population-- billions of us; the human technical ability -- mass destruction and killing made effortless; the earth's status -- a living entity under continual gargantuan assault. These factors illustrate the need for a new perspective, a new consciousness. Our thrashing around in the web of life is atavistic,out of date, redounding to the threatening of life itself for our descendants. The questions are: Who or what will awaken us? How can we move to the position of guardians rather than destroyers? The babies born now, the grandchildren now growing up -- they will no doubt be living when the waters rise. This matter is not far away, it is as close as anything has ever been. And oh, yes, that empty mental and moral space exists in the views of almost all politicians -- but we expected more from this unquestionably brilliant president. Though we do know the brilliant can be blind -- worse, they can be ruled by pragmatism that, when continually appeased, grows continually to narrow the boundaries of thought."

RANCHERS/CEOS RULE THEIR OWN NATIONS

The Department of the Interior is taking away federal protection of wolves on August 1 to allow wholesale massacre. Here is my letter, probably never to be read by the secretary but thank you for reading it. Dear Secretary Salazar and colleagues in the Department of the Interior: Why propitiate wealthy ranchers by signing on for the mass murder of wolves? These ranchers in the cattle business are analogous to the oil companies – their goals are profit and all other considerations be damned. Corporations heads and cattle “barons” have been allowed by us and by our government to set themselves up in the same mode as the sovereign kings and emperors of olden days – considering their lands as royal domains -- in fact private nations -- and themselves as entitled to live outside the law and all considerations of the greater good of life itself. The most absolute power of a king was to order death as he wished. It is time to take away the absolute power that these self-appointed rulers have abrogated to themselves. Though they have boundaries, unfathomable wealth, private armies, and thousands of dependent laboring “citizens" – it is causing immeasurable harm to continue to allow them to live as separate nations within our nation, the United States of America. It’s time now for Americans to stop treating the very wealthy as royalty – think back to the Magna Carta -- are we really going to be the society which has revoked the Magna Carta in cases of the very wealthy? These "rulers" must be subject to the same laws and considerations as those in the larger society. As the Center for Biological Diversity said: “We can't let these intelligent, majestic animals be slaughtered to satisfy the whims of ranchers and politicians. Yet despite tens of thousands of letters and phone calls to save the wolves, Secretary Salazar will strip away their federal protection on August 31. Wyoming's plan will allow wolves to be indiscriminately killed outside Yellowstone National Park and a few other safe havens: 80 percent of the state will become a wolf-killing zone.” There are ways to live alongside “wild” animals without killing them. American and other western representatives continuously work with "emerging" companies to stop them from killing "wild life," to teach them the larger viewpoints of ecological living and the irreplaceable value of the “wild” as part of the travel and tourist industry, one of the richest sources of income on earth. Is wholesale murder of animals labeled as "wild" really the example we want to give to our children and to other societies? Wealthy ranchers have NO RIGHT to demand to live on lands or to be on adjacent lands where all "wildlife" must be killed, no matter how much money they give to politicians or lobbyists. They do not own the planet and the few remaining "wild" places. The human attitude has to change, for ourselves, for our descendants, and for the life of the planet. Knee jerk killing of other beings is not a viable reaction to human-identified problems. We must become guardians, not killers, in the web of life -- for the sake of our own lives and for the living earth, the largest of such beings and our only home. If our co-inhabitants in life and on earth WITH us cannot live on this planet, then it will be true -- sooner than later -- that we cannot live here either. We thrash about in the web of life at our peril.